FACTORS OF SUCCESSFUL FARMING NEAR MONETT, MO. 11 



a number of the leading fruit -producing sections of the country. 

 This region has experienced two such years in the last decade. 



These occasional years which produce no profit and sometimes re- 

 sult in rather heavy loss make fruit growing a speculative business. 

 In the long run the good crops or the high prices, or the occasional 

 combination of a good crop with high prices, will bring in enough 

 money to make the business profitable in localities that are well 

 adapted to it, as this region undoubtedly is to the strawberry crop. 

 But the uncertainty of a profit in any particular year renders it 

 unwise for the farmer to depend entirely on income from such enter- 

 prises. On farms devoted largely to fruit growing this uncertainty 

 may be obviated partially by having several kinds of fruit, for it is 

 hardly likely that all of them will fail to produce a profit in any one 

 year. The most successful fruit farm found in this survey was really 

 a diversified fruit farm. It must be remembered, however, that it 

 takes a man of very unusual ability to make a success with a business 

 of this character. Where fruit is a minor enterprise, such diversifi- 

 cation is not so necessary and may even be quite undesirable. 



If there is a good local market which renders shipping to distant 

 points unnecessary, there is considerable advantage in growing sev- 

 eral kinds of fruit ; but where shipping is necessary the saving from 

 shipping in car lots is so great as to place the producer of small lots 

 at a disadvantage. Diversification in fruit growing as a means of 

 insurance against crop loss must therefore be undertaken only after 

 careful consideration of the marketing problem. 



Another factor which must be taken into consideration is the dan- 

 ger from disease and insect pests to which fruit crops of all kinds 

 are exposed. Occasionally a disease gets a start among strawberries, 

 appears in the nurseries, and is spread over a large region before its 

 presence is suspected. This causes heavy loss, not only to the nurs- 

 eryman, but to those who have bought plants from him. 



With all these disadvantages, however, the facts indicate that the 

 strawberry business is a good one for the farmers of this region. It 

 seems to be clear also that in the vast majority of cases the proper 

 place of this crop is represented by a few acres. The smaller the 

 farm the larger the acreage of strawberries required to fill in the 

 labor schedule. The fact that the largest acreage of strawberries 

 on any one farm was 6 acres is significant. This is about what an 

 ordinary farm family can take care of except at harvest time. On 

 the larger farms 1 or 2 acres of strawberries would generally be de- 

 sirable. 



Nothing has been said here about the amount of labor required in 

 harvesting the strawberry crop, since no particular local difficulty 

 appears to arise in this connection. The work is made more or less 

 a festival, and thousands of people from the surrounding towns come 





